188 LAMPLUGII : NOTES ON THE WHITE CHALK OF YORKSHIRE. 
persisted until the beginning of the Ghicial Period. Of this stage direct 
evidence is forthcoming in the sections. There exists at the foot of 
the Chalk escarpment at Speeton. beneath all the glacial drifts, an 
estuarine shell-bed, some 80 feet above the shore, yielding a limited 
fauna of shells all referable to species still extant. On the opposite 
or southern side of the headland the Chalk-section terminates 
abruptly near the village of Sewerby in a very well-preserved ancient 
sea-cliff, with a shore-deposit at its foot nearly at the present 
sea-level. This ancient cliff and shore is buried beneath all the 
drifts. By means of excavations into the old shingle undertaken 
jointly by this Society and the British Association, we have obtained 
the remains of extinct species of elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, 
etc , along with a few land and sea-shore shells of existing species."' 
Though there is some difference of level between these two deposits 
they appear to belong approximately to the same period. 1 During 
their accumulation the headland must have been a much more pro- 
minent feature of the coast-line even than it is to-day, for the sea 
tlien covered, on its southern side, the whole of Holderness up to the 
foot of the Wolds, and on its northern flank ran far inland along the 
Vale of Pickering, forming a long estuarine inlet which received the 
waters of the Derwent and its tributaries. Then, too, the extremity 
of the headland would reach out further eastward by so much as has 
since been lost through erosion, so that the Flamborough Head of 
Preglacial times must indeed have been a noble promontory ! 
Throughout Pliocene times there had been an increasing refrigera- 
tion of the climate, and at the period of these beaches ice-floes bearing 
erratic pebbles occasionally drove ashore in the bays. No doubt the 
accumulation of glacier-ice had by this time already attained consider- 
able dimensions among the higher hill-ranges of Northern Britain and 
Scandinavia, and in both regions had crept down to tide-water, and 
had begun to displace the sea in the shallows around the coasts. 
Although it was not until later that any part of these glaciers reached 
Enst York.shire, the climatal conditions were nevertheless very favour- 
* Report on the Buried Cliff at Sewerby, by G. W. Lamp! ugh. Proc. 
Yorksh. Oeol. and Polyt. Soc. (1887), vol. ix., p. 381 (plate 21). Also Rep. 
British Assoc. Bath (1888), p. 328, and (1890), p. 799. 
t See "Drifts of Flamborough Head," op. cit. 
